Nation: LYNDON'S FABLES

Lyndon Johnson is the hardest-working presidential tale spinner since Abraham Lincoln. Some of his yarns are long and tangled and full of Johnson's long-winded Texas syntax. Some are funny, some are pithy, and as often as not they are used to draw an Aesopian moral or to make a contemporary point. Some examples:

The Game is the Same. "Twenty-seven years ago this month, I came here as a newly elected Congressman. Washington has changed very little since then. Not long ago I called in one of the very bright and very busy...

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